





VDD11ESS 



OF 



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tl II • WJjl 



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IF 




.«*•** 



OF BALTIMORE, MD.. 



BEFORE THE 



Oxford Agricultural Society, 



On May, October 111, 1 






OXFORD, L'A.: 

PRESS," HOOK, CARD AM) JOH PRINTER. 

ISTd. 



QJ. ' 



ADDRESS 



OF 



mSfcil® Mk i 



OF BALTIMORE, MD„ 



BEFORE THE 



Oxford Agricultural Society, 



On Friday, October 7th, 1810. 



] 



OXFORD, PA. : 

PRESS," BOOK, CARD AND JOB PRINTER. 

1870. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



Oxford, Fa., October L5'h, 1870. 
At the meeting of the Board of Managers of the Oxford Agri- 
cultural Society, oa the 12th inst., a resolution of thanks to Hon. 
Charles E. Phelps, for his very able and highly practical address at 
the First Annual Exhibition of the Society, on the 7th, was unanimously 
adapted, and the Secretary was instructed to request a copy for publi- 
cation. From (he minutes. 

//. L. BRINTON, Cor. Sec'u 



BALTIMORE, Md., October 18th, 1870. 
Rev. John M. Dickey, I). 1).. 

Dear Sir : Your esteemed favor of the 17th instant, is received, en- 
closing a copy of Resolutions of the Board of Managers of (be ( )xford 
Agricultural Society. 

I beg that you will take occasion to assure the Board of my very 

high appreciation of the compliment contained in their vote of thanks 

and request of a copy of the address delivered on the 7th inst., for 

publication, and to inform them that the manuscript is at their service. 

Yours very truly, 

CHAR L ES E. PE K L I 'S 






V 



ADDRESS OF 

Hon. Charles E„ Phelps, 

BEFORE THE OXFORD .AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY, 
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 7th, 1870. 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

A citizen of another State, and a 
member of another profession than that 
of Agriculture, the honor has been as- 
signed to me of addressing the first an- 
nual meeting of your Society. History 
records that once there existed a line of 
division between your State and mine. 
Upon the Pennsylvania side, agricultu- 
ral labor was then as it is now, voluntary 
and compensated. Upon the Maryland 
side it was to a considerable extent 
compulsory, a lingering but tenacious 
legacy of by-gone barbaric ages and 
usages. Practically, Maryland, though a 
slave state, was a stronger abolition 
state than her free sister Pennsylvania. 
Up to the war of the rebellion she had 
voluntarily emancipated more slaves than 
Pennsylvania ever owned; and while 
that war was at its most doubtful crisis, 
as if to blow up with nitro-glycerine the 
bridge between her and the belligerent 
and almost triumphant confederacy, 
Maryland with one constitutional vote 
shattered the hoary fabric into ruin. 

Upon the long list of casualties of 
the great war of the rebellion, no names 
are recognized as more thoroughly dead, 
than those of Mason and Dixon among 
the killed ; and more completely lost, 
than that of Mason and Dixon's line 
among the missing. 

Opinions may vary as to the precise 
day or spot upon which they fell, but 
none dispute the mournful fact that 
they and their line are gone, and gone 
beyond the reach of resurrection. 

One thing is certain, their most mor- 
tal wound was received, as was right, 
in Pennsylvania's soil, and from Penn- 
sylvania bands. Meade and Hancock, 



and the slopes of Gettysburg, must in all 
future time answer for the fate of Mason 
and Dixon's line. It is therefore with 
great propriety that your association 
has, as I understand, extended its fra- 
ternal recognition and welcome beyond 
the limits of Chester county to the far- 
mers of the adjoining counties of Penn- 
sylvania and Maryland. The climate 
and the seasons with them, are the same 
as with you. The natural capabilities 
of the soil are without material differ- 
ence. The products of the soil are iden- 
tical. The system of labor is the same. 
There exists no longer even an imag- 
inary line of political or social separa- 
tion. Common Interests, pursuits, ne- 
cessities, added to close neighborhood 
here along both sides of this old border 
Slate line, unmistakably point to a bet- 
ter understanding and a closer union be- 
tween the farmers of Pennsylvania and 
Maryland. 

The sphere of usefulness of your So- 
ciety is plainly not to be circumscribed 
by state or county lines. There is a 
significance in the very indefiniteiiess of 
its title, ' - The Oxford Agricultural So- 
ciety. 1 ' Here in this thriving, beautiful 
borough, the seat of an Institution of 
learning, the first of its kind not only in 
this country but in any country, here in 
the heart of a land famous for its barns, 
its dairies, its cattle, its crops, you have 
established the headquarters of the or- 
ganized agricultural interests, not of a 
single county merely, but of a wide re- 
gion. There is no limit to the benefi- 
cent influences which are designed to 
radiate from Oxford as the selected seat 
and center of our efforts at enlightment 
and improvement. And there is no reason 



why this enterprise, so successfully inau- 
gurated, should not continue year after 
year its career of splendid but peaceful 
conquest, collecting and diffusing practi- 
cal information, gathering a richer har- 
vest of induction from a continually ex- 
panding field of experiment, exciting to 
generous emulation the fillers of far 
distant acres, and making permanent 
contributions to the Agricultural science 
of our race. 

Much has been written, and much has 
been spoken, particularly on occasions 
like the present, of the importance of 
agriculture to the welfare of mankind, 
and of its dignity in the scale of human 
pursuits. The theme, like its subject, is 
a boundless one. It is at once the oldest 
and the newest of arts. The processes, by 
which are extracted from the soil and 
atmosphere the materials for food and 
clothing, are patented every day in a 
thousand improved forms, and yet they 
are essentially the same processes, pro- 
ducing precisely the same results,as those 
which were rudely practised in pre-his- 
toric times, nebulous with myth and fa- 
ble. Men ploughed, and sowed, and 
weeded, and watered, and digged, audi 
fertilized, and reaped and thrashed, and 
winnowed, and gathered into barns.ages 
before the Hebrew shepherd Boy super- 
intended the colossal granaries of Egypt,! 
or a vineyard was planted by the surviv- 
ingPatriarch of the deluge. Very recent 
discoveries in the lakes of Switzerland, 
Italy and Germany, in the bogs of Ireland] 
and the peat mosses of Scandinavia, have' 
brought to light the rude implements of a 
primitive agriculture , buried and forgot- 
ten, long before European history com- 
menced. Fragments of pottery, hatchets, 
scythes, sickles, horse-shoes, bridle-bits, 
plow shares. grind-stones, the relics of ra- 
ces and periods as to which the oldest his- 
tory is silent, have been within the last 
ten years disinterred from beneath the 
tombs of uncounted centuries. The skill 
of the antiquarian has exhausted itself 
in vain in assigning to the successive 
ages of stone, of bronze and of iron indi- 
cated by the archaeological strata through 
which he has burrowed in search of these 
mysterious relics, some known data bv 
which the latest of them could be con- 
nected with the most ancient historical 
or traditional times. No author of antiq- 
uity refers to these relics, or to the gen- 
erations whose presence on our globe 
they attest. An acute observer ,and copi- 



ous narrator ,Pliny,spent his country life 
upon the banks of one of these Italian 
lakes, and died in ignorauee of the fasci- 
nating lore secreted beneath its waters. 
No ancient chronicle, no legend, no tra- 
dition extant in Pliny's time, in the first 
century of our era, could have suggested 
the faiutest trace of these primeval pre- 
decessors of the Gauls, Helvetians and 
Etruscans. They had long before his 
time perished from the memory of man. 

And yet we are as well assured that 
these forgotten generations once lived,as 
we are certain of the existauce of our 
own grand-fathers. We have in our 
hands as convincing and conclusive evi- 
dences of the fact, as if their own depo- 
sitions had come down to us properly au- 
thenticated. We not only know the fact 
that they lived, but we know how they 
lived. The science of archaeology has 
succeeded to a partial, it is true, but mar- 
velous degree, in reconstructing the 
shattered and forgotten fabric of their 
clumsy civlization, by a similar analysis 
to that by which the genius of Cuvier 
from a fossil tooth or fragment could re- 
produce the entire frame of a mastodon. 

We can see to-day the iudentical ves- 
sels in which they storod their milk, the 
drainers in which they pressed 
cheese, the porringers from which they 
took their soup. Weapons of war and of 
the chase they certainly possessed, but 
none have yet been discovered among 
the relics of these primative populations 
as murderous as the needle-gun, or the 
mitrailleuse with its forty death-dealing 
barrels breathing the gentle s[ irit of 
modern civilzation, inspired by the lessons 
and examples of nineteen Christian 
centuries. 

The utensils of husbandry which have 
been found are of various patterns, in 
stone and metal. Those of stone are as- 
signed to the earliest period ; those of 
iron, to the latest. The intermdiate 
period is called the age of bronze, and 
the implements belonging to it have been 
found in a remarkable state of preserva- 
tion. The composition of this metal is 
copper and tin. No zinc is found in the 
bronzes of this period. Utensils of horn 
and bone, and earthenware are common 
to all these periods. Not only have these 
lost generations of antiquity bequeathed 
to us their old farming tools and crock- 
ery, they have even left us samples of 
their bread. The bread has been kept 
safe and sound through several thousand 



years by being carbonized like tbe peatltions for their subsistance. 

in which it was found buried. It was re- And this condition as necessarily in- 
ported to be good bread, but somewhat volves the idea that the efforts of the 
stale. I have not heard that any butter husbandman have advanced beyond the 
has been sampled as yet. With respect point of a mere provision for the wants 
to the bread it is curious that the veiy of himself and his family, to the accumu- 
grain of which it was made has been rec- latiou of a surplus wealth. With this sur- 
ognizecl. Some has been found of millet, plus he feeds the city and at the same 
and some evidently of wheat, the flour time gains an exchange in her markets, 
being unbolted and imperfectly ground.; Agriculture therefore must have become 

There are many parts of the earth an art before cities were possible. 
where the art of agriculture to-day is Commerce has been frequently called 
very little advanced beyond the point the great civilizer of mankind. It is 
attained in those pre-historic ages. I certainly difficult to over estimate the 
have myself seen in the plains of Lom- importance ot this noble department of 
hardy, a man ploughing with a sin- human industry. Whether foreign or 
gle beast, harnessed before a crooked inland, by caravan or trading ship; by 
stick,which appeared to tickle the earth's trireme or steamer, by conestoga wagon 
skin about hard enough to make it or railroad, it has in ancient and modern 
laugh. In the same classic region, not times diffused among mankind the corn- 
far from the banks of the Ticino, where forts aud appliances of an improved life, 
IIannibal,after his descent from the Alps, stimulated industry and enterprise, cora- 
lirst encountered the Roman legion un-municated knowledge, enlarged and lib- 
der Scipio and routed them in a pitched eralized the intellect. More than all this 
battle, I saw with my own eyes, a man, the crowning glory may probably be as- 
a woman, and several children in a field cribed to commerce of having given let- 
by the roadside, driving a cow round ters to the race, and made thought and 
and round over what looked like a large genius immortal. The Phenecian mar- 
sheet spread upon the ground. Upon |iners and merchants who were the pio- 
inquiring the meaning of the singular neers of coastwise and ocean commerce, 
exhibitions sort of one cow circus, I learn- finding memory too short for their multi- 
ed that it was an agricultural family of plied transactions, committed them to 
of the period engaged in threshing out symbols which are still perpetuated in 
their crop of rape seed. These people the alphabet of Homer, Shakespeare and 
and their predecessors have been plough- Schiller. 

ing and threshing in precisely the same But though commerce has done all 
way, upon the same spot, from the time this and more, though she has found 
of tlannibars invasion, and doubtless the magnetic needle, colonized old and 
long before. discovered new continents, though she 

As Agriculture is the most ancient of has given to science that magnificent 
of arts, so it is the chief corner stone of revelation of the true form and motion 
civilization. This statement m ay possi- of the planet that has led to the astound- 
bly at first sight seem too broad, and in ing discoveries of Newton, Kepler and 
conflict with the terminology of the word La Place, she is after all but the cora- 
, •'■civilization , ' itself, which as well as the raon carrier of agriculture. The raw ma- 
kindred term "urbanity" appear to im-terial and the manufactured fabric which 
ply a contrast between the polish and are the interchange of commerce, are 
refinement attributed to the populous to a very large extent the direct product 
life of cities, and the rustic isolation and of the soil, or else thai product combin- 
in dependence of the fields. A moments ed with skilled labor, which though not 
reflection, however shows; that even agricultural depends immediately upon 
from that point of view, the position is agriculture for support, 
well taken, and literally correct. With From this casual reference to manu- 
out agriculture, and indeed an advanced factures, it is natural to pass to a some- 
stage of agriculture, there could he no what closer attention to the relations 
cities, no towns. between that branch of industry and the 

Their very existence necessarily im- one which it is the object of your Society 
plies a systematic and provident culture to foster. To prepare the soil for the seed, 
oi the surrounding country upon which it must be broken up. A repeated stirring 
: hov can depend with unfailing expecta- of the soil is required to keep down the 



weeds. The matured crop must be cut, 
hauled, threshed, and hauled again. 
Without implements, therefore the far- 
mer is helpless, Hence the dependence 
of agriculture upon ihe mechanic art. It 
will be of course understood that the ag- 
riculture here spoken of is the progres- 
sive art practised b} r civilized men, and 
not the mere manual drudgery of extort- 
ing a simble subsistauce from the soil 
by those who manufacture the clumsy 
tools they till with. In that phase of 
agriculture which preceeded the division 
of labor, when the husbandman made his 
own plow out of a root or branch hard- 
ened in the fire, and his own spade or hoe 
out of a flint stone, such as are found 
in the Indian mounds of this continent, 
and his own sickle out of the same rude 
material, or from the more artificial me- 
tallic composition of which specimens 
have been found amidst the relics of the 
age of bronze, the husbandman might 
with-strict propriety be called indepen- 
dent, and it is in that phase,and in that 
sense alone, thatlagriculture may be regar 
ded as an independent pursuit. But it is 
when most independent, that husbandry 
and the husbandman are in the most ab- 
ject condition. After expending much 
valuable time and much hard labor that 
should have been devoted to the cultiva- 
tion of the soil upon the preparation, or 
repair, or renewal of his implements, he 
finds those contrivances so imperfect 
that with all his diligence in their use no 
fruits of his industry result beyond a 
meager sustenance. It is only when the 
skilled artisan begins to make the farm- 
er dependent upon him for time-saving 
and labor-saving utensils, that agricul- 
ture begins to advance as an art, with 
capacities for indefinite progress aad 
perfectibility. The use of these improved 
appliances, enabling the farmer to make 
twice the crop in one half the time, not 
only gives him leisure for reflection, obser- 
vation and comparison of experiences 
with others similalry engaged, and oppor- 
tunties for projecting new modes of culti- 
vation, but provides him with a surplus 
capital on which he may venture to make 
experiments,acquire additional land, hire 
the labor to till it, contribute his 
quota to the defence of the state, the 
maintenance of public order, and the 
support of religion, and finally to sur- 
round himself with those comforts and 
embellishments which tend to dignify, 
elevate and adorn the social and civili- 



zed man. 

It was stated in the outset, that agri- 
culture is at once the oldest and the 
newest of the arts. Within the last fifty 
years, it has made more progress, than 
during the three thousand years before. 
For much the larger portion of this im- 
provement, it is indebted to the wonder- 
ful mechanical inventions that have dis- 
tinguished this half century beyond any 
other period of history. Men are now 
living, who have seen the old strap plow, 
or wooden mould board superseded by the 
steel clipper, and the shovel and the hoe 
laid down before the rotary spader and 
the cultivator. Since the organization of 
the Patent Office, more than a thousand 
patents have been issued in America for 
improvements in plows and cultivators 
alone. Very few of this number it is true 
have been generally approved, and most 
of them are practically worthless, ex- 
cept as approximations and suggestive 
possibilities which only await, the next 
step in the march of inventive genius to 
realize new and brilliant conquests of 
mind over matter. It is to this transition 
period that we must for the present as- 
sign the idea of the steam plow, as prac- 
tically available to American tillage. 

In like manner, a living generation 
has seen the hand sickle, the scythe, tiie 
cradle, the rake, the flail and the open 
cylinder, give place to machine reapers 
and mowers with self-raking and binding 
auxiliaries, to threshing machines, with 
separators,winnowers and straw carriers. 
These cunning combinations of wheel 
and lever which subsidize the muscle of 
the animal creation and substitute brute 
power for its equivalent in human labor, 
are mainly the inventions of American 
machinists, and within the last quarter 
of a century have revolutionized the sys- 
tem of agriculture not only of our own 
country, but of the civilized world. There 
were according to the census of 18Go, 
two and a half millions of farmers in the 
United States, employing nearly 800,000 
farm laborers. It has been estimated, 
and in my opinion the estimate falls consi- 
derably below the truth, that agricultural 
machinery has added the labor of a mil- 
lion more able bodied men. What a tre- 
mendous reinforcement to the military 
power of a nation, this substitution of ma- 
chanism for muscle, has been illustrated 
by the late civil war,which withdrew from 
industrial pursuits, chiefly agricultural, in 
ihe northern stares alone, nearly two 



millions of men; and yet more acres 
were tilled, and more bushels were har- 
vested by the farmers who staid at home 
than in years of profound peace. 

But after all, important as is the art 
of the mechanic to agriculture, there is 
one thing even more indispensable. 
Armed and equipped as the farmer 
might be with all the appliances and 



immortal youth, eternal and indestructi- 
ble save by a fiat as Omnipotent as that 
which created them, these atoms and 
particles with all their properties and 
qualities, their chemical affinties, their 
attractions and repulsions, their gravi- 
tation, their polarity, their luminous, 
calorific and electric vibrations, have 
through an infinitely varied series of 



enginery of mechanical skill, he would be combinations and dissolutions,decompo- 
the most helpless of beings unless breadjsitions and recompositions, supplied the 
were in his soil; for if bread is not in the material for all the generations of vege- 
soil.no invention that human enginuity table, animal and human life. Not an 
can devise can get bread out of it. In atom of them is lost, nor its place un- 
thc economy of nature there is no waste, known to Omniscience, 
no destruction, no annihilation of ele-j One day in the brain of Shakespeare, 
ments, but a constant flux and reflux. jthe next, ascending in vapor to the 

Let us consider this for a moment, clouds, the next falling in rain upon the 
There is no species of property, which sod ; it may then be caught for a few 
we are accustomed to regard as so pe- years in the bony frame work of a graz- 
culiarly, so exclusively and so indefeasi- ing ox, and patiently awaitiug the mould- 
bly our own, as the property we hold in ering of its skeleton upon the soil, may 
the flesh that covers our bones. pass through a grain of wheat to flash 

We commonly look upon it as per- in the eye of beauty or strike with the 
sonal property of the highest order, arm of power. 

and yet it may be logically and And thus what was grass yesterday 
philosophically demonstrated that no is flesh to-day, and what is flesh to-day 
greater fallacy could possibly be enter- will be grass again to-morrow. Such has 
tained, and that our individual tenure of: been the constaut order and sequence 
that identical flesh, and of the bones of nature ever since and long before 
inside it, so far from being a fee simple, Isaiah wrote "All flesh is grass." But 
undivided interest, is not even a life it is no part of this inexorable law that 
estate, out the merest temporary tenancy, the second crop of grass shall necessari- 
and that upon very trancient leases, ly grow upon the same spot with the 
Pythagoras held the doctrine of the first. It is just as likely to sprout up on 
transmigration of souls, the fundamental the opposite circumference of the globe, 
error of which, doubtless, was a heathen- or to waste its verdure upon some un- 
ish confounding of the material with the peopled isle in mid-ocean. The labor 
spiritual part of man. Had Pythagoras of man is necessary; that labor at once 
stopped at the transmigration of bodies, provident, intelligent and unceasing, to 
his philosophy would have been nearer control these accidents of nature, and to 
the literal truth. These mortal vestments guide its dissolving fluxing and fertili- 
of ours, are but the cast oft' clothing of zing elements to their proper destina- 
other men and animals, both the living tious. 

and the dead. Of them we might say The principle that underlies and reg- 
with quite as much sincerity, and proba- ulates this effort, is the simple one ot 
bly as much truth as the arch hypocrite, justice. It recognizes in nature, not the 
lago, said of his purse — "who steals my" slave of man bound to yield at his su- 
fiexh "steals trash. Twas mine, 'tis his preme inundate its unearned bounties, 
and has been slave to thousands." These but his ally and copartner, requiring 
atoms and particles of carbon and hy- only the simple justice of an equivalent 
drgen and oxygen and nitrogen in which for what she yields him. 
we robe ourselves to-day in all the pride There is neither magic nor mystery in 
and plenitude of personality, have come good husbandry. There is simply the 
down to us from ages far beyond the plain downright justice of giving back 
flood, each with its own unconfused to the soil the fertility of which it has 
identity and distinct biography. been cropped. The best of farmers is 

Hoary with an antiquity of unrecord-jhe who takes heavy crops from his broad 
ed centuries and cycles past the power! acres, and leaves them better than he 
of numbers to compute, yet fresh with found them. 



8 



It is in this aspect especially that ag- 
riculture, within a recent period, has 
been elevated from an art, and has attain 
ed the proportions and dignity of a sci- 
ence. 

Science has to deal with facts — with 
truths — with the confirmed results of ob- 
servations aud experiments ; and from 
a patient, methodical classification and 
analysis of those results, to rise to the 
investigation and discovery of principles 
and laws. Without facts to start with, 
established facts, facts varied and quali- 
fied by every possible condition and 
mode, facts tested and multiplied !;y ev- 
ery possible experiment, there can be no 
generlization, no induction, no discovery 
of law and consequently no prediction 
of science. Agriculture for several thou- 
sand years has made but little progress 
as an art, and as a science has only be- 
gun to exist within the memory of liv- 
ing men; and why V Because the contri- 
butions of new facts were few or none 
at all ; because there were no organized 
systematic efforts to elicit such contri- 
butions or to collect these results, be- 
cause each successive generation plod- 
ded on in the beaten path marked out 
by its predecessors, and rode to the mill 
with grain in one end of the bag and a 
stone in the other tobalance,for no bet- 
ter reason than because somebody's 
grand-father had always ridden in the 
same way before him. The first 
step in the direction of elevating 
agriculture to a science of discovery 
and prediction was taken when the first 
agricultural society was organized. 
There are now nearly 1400 agricultural 
and horticultural societies, state and lo- 
cal in correspondence with a depart- 
ment of the National Government at 
Washington specially dedicated to the 
agricultural interests of the country. 
Journals and periodicals devoted to the 
same interests exclusively, now circulate 
a number of copies larger than the ag- 
gregate circulation of all the newspapers 
of every kind printed at the commence- 
ment of this century. Besides the agri- 
cultural Journals proper, nearly every 
newspaper printed in the city or coun- 
try, whether daily or weekly, habitually 
assigns a liheral and leading place in its 
columns to agricultural topics. In addi- 
tion to the state and local associations 
whose annual exhibitions of cattle and 
horses, sheep and hogs and poultry, 
and of farm and dairy, orchard and 



garden products, with premiums 
offered for successful competition, 
have become the great rural exchange 
of our people. There have sprung up in 
many localities farmers clubs with more 
frequent meetings for interchange of 
views, comparison of experiences.and in- 
formal discussion of matters connected 
with their profession. Some of these clubs 
are kept up with so much interest and 
spirit that their proceedings are regular- 
ly reported for the public press, and 
read with eagerness and profit, bj' intel- 
ligentfarmers throughout the country. 

Such associations are of the highest 
value, and ought in every way be en- 
couraged. Like everything else of real 
worth, they are not to be had without 
effort, nor properly sustained without 
continued exertion. They do not come 
of themselves. Farmers are not natu- 
rally gregarious. The very necessities 
of their occupation tends to scatter and 
isolate them. Deployed over the face 
of the earth at distant intervals, each 
one finds sufficient employment for his 
attention upon the acres that surround 
him; and the farmer's work you all know 
is never done. It is true that occasion- 
ally they are drawn together by law, 
politics or religion, but neither the church, 
the barbecue nor the court house can 
be converted into schools of agricultural 
improvement. Agricultural colleges 
with experimental farms attached, have 
been recently established, but they can 
accomplish no more for this special de- 
partment than any other college.for any 
other learning which they teach; they 
can lay the foundation for an education, 
not complete it. This is pre-eminently 
the age of co-operation. Everybody 
else is combining, organizing, disciplin- 
ing and drilling. 

The farmers must do the same thing, 
or they will be left behind, imposed up- 
on and victimized. "Without these ad- 
vantages of mutual aid, organized and 
disciplined movement which character- 
ize the age we live in, the farmers while 
they imagine they are only attending to 
their own business, and letting well 
enough alone, will by and by discover 
that they are being driven, and sold, and 
fleeced like their own sheep. Take your 
great railway corporations for instance. 
They are really dependent on agriculture 
for the life blood that feeds them. Their 
lucrative freights, the enormous profits 
in which their bond and slockholders 



9 



participate, are nothing but the coined ( middle-men are as fairly entitled to their 
sweat and toil of the tanners. But what reasonable profit as the farmer to his. 
has combination done for these great It is only when the miller, the merchant 
lines of communication ? It has made and the broker from capitalists become 
them practically masters of the situation, speculators, and from speculators 
Though the farmers out number and , conspirators to take advantage of the 
might out vote all other interests combi- uecesities of both the producer and con- 
ned yet, because they have neglected to sumer, that a disturbing and dangerous 
concentrate their strength, they are j element is introduced, which atfects most 
bound hand and foot all along the lines! disastrously the agricultural interests of 
of these gigantic corporations, which ex- the country. There isa class of opulent 
tinguish all competition, silence all farmers whose accumulated wealth ena- 
oppositions, control the legislation bles them to hold back their crops, and 
of great states, and in some instances who are thus beyond the reach of the 
the administration of justice itself, unprincipled intrigues. But the great 
The struggles of these great rival majority are not capitalists, they are 
lines to secure the contested through' fighting the battle of life with all their 
traffic, and thus make their monopolies forces in front,they have no reserves to 
still more complete and crushing, are call into action, or to fallback upon, 
carried on in merciless and arrogant dis- when the pressure of onset is felt. No 
dain of the hapless way-freighters, at, matter at what sacrifice, their crops and 
whose cost the unprincipled war-fare is their cattle must move to market, forced 
waged. The time has come for the far- down artificially though it be bylthe mani- 
mers of the country to organize in self- pulations of confederate speculators, or 
defence against the ruinous tactics of visions of judgments, mortgages and the 
these audacious coalitions. It is time sheriff's hammer ,haunt their dreams like 
for them to understand and assert their spectres. Their humble barns are emp- 
power, and with all the force of their tied sadly, mournfully and with tea rs,at 
numbers' intelligence and influence com prices which bitterly suggest the unre- 
bined in disciplined and persistent ef- quited toil, hazard and privation of the 
fort demand the necessary legislation to year's labor which keep the children at 
remedy these abuses of monopoly. If home from school, and the mother in 
state legislatures are powerless to cor- her old dress and bonnet. His little 
rect the evil, then let Congress exercise crop has gone into the plethoric ware- 
its constitutional power, over commerce! house of the speculator who can afford to 
between the states, and enact a uniform await his own time and price,andhis cat- 
tariff of freights, so much per ton per tie are the property ot a ring of monop- 
mile the whole country over, and thusjolists. Bread and beef are still dear to 
put local and through freights upon the the consumer, though the farmer has re- 
same equitable basis, and let through jalized but little in producing them, 
freights find their natural outlet over 1 Here is a problem which legislation 
the shortest routes. has grappled with time and again for 

But there are other combinations al- centuries, and has at last given up in 
most equally formidable and oppressive despair. The old common law misde- 
to the farmer, although not legislated meanor of forestalling and regrating 
into the shape of bodies corporate. Why! have long since become obsolete. Wri- 
is it that there are times when the cou- ; ting more than a century ago, Black- 
sumer has to pay extravagant prices for] stone informs us in this connection that: 
the necessaries of life, while for the same "Combinations among victuallers or arti 
staples the farmer, who produces them ficers to raise the price of provisions, or 
can barely get a living price for his la-! any commodities, or the rate of labor, 
bor,aud sometimes not even that? Let me are in many cases severely punished by 
not be misunderstood, I am about to particular statutes, and, in general, by 
make no onslaught upon the great tra- statute 2 and 3 Edw. VI c. 15, with the 
ding classes of the country. The com- [forfeiture 10 1. or twenty days imprison- 
mission merchant is as necessary to the|ment, with an allowance of only bread 
farmer as the mechanic, as necessary asland water for the first offence, 20 1. or 
the railroad. The farmer cannot be his|the pillory for the second and, 40 1. for 
own huckster, he must reach the consu-i the third, or else the pillory, loss of 
mer through middle-men. and these one ear, and perpetual infamy. 



10 



in the same manner, by a constitution Other features might be united in this 
of the Emperor Zeno, all monopolies plan, such as that of a Mutual Insur- 
and combinations to keep up the price of ance company, and a Mutual Building- 
merchandize, provisions or workmanship, Association. Mutual Insurance Compan- 
were prohibited upon pain of forfeiture panies have long been established and 
of goods and perpetual banishment. 4 are well known in all parts of the coun- 
com. 159. try. Building, Benefit or Homestead 

If any laws of a similar tenor still ex- Societies have been recently multiplied 
ist upon the statute books of any of our in cities and towns to an astonishing ex- 
States, they are practically a dead let- tent. There are several hundreds of 
ter. Nobody ever heard of a Grand them in the city of Baltimore alone, in 
Jury indicting any of those operators, which all clashes of the community are 
although they are as well known in more or less interested, but principally 
every community as if they were mechanics and working men. They are 
marked under theold statute of Edward based upon the same principle astheco- 
V I, with a cropped ear. operative societies or unions already re- 

It is a question for serious considei^a-'ferred to, and result in making the ten- 
tion whether this evil,which legislation ant his own land-lord. The system by 
has proved utterly powerless to cope which this is accomplished is a very in- 
with,cannot be at ieast in some measure genious and artificial one, too eiab- 
remedied by concert of action amongst orate in all its detail to be explained at 
the farmers. There seems to be no length withouttedious prolixity , but sim 
good reason why farmers should not be pie enough to be perfectly intelligible to 
able by co-operative agencies to protect the plainest understanding, 
i.hemselves from extortion and plunder The sum and substance of it is to en- 
as effectually as laborers and artisans, able the stockholders by the payment 
Factory operatives in Great Britan have of small weekly sums, not larger than 
formed themselves into joint stock com-) the amount he would otherwise pay for 
panies with shares of moderate amount; 1 the rent of his dwelling house, to re- 
and have for a long time, and with great deem at the expiration of a term of 
success, carried on co-operative stores years the mortgage held by the company 
from which they draw their family sup- upon the house, which he has purchased 
plies at fair prices, and realize the pro- with the means advanced by his Building- 
fit upon their own custom in the shape Society, and which thus becomes his 
of handsome dividends. Not only own property instead of reverting to a 
stores,but large manufacturing enterpri- landlord. The advantages of such a sys- 
ses have been established, and success- tern, to the individual, as well as to 
fully worked upon the same principle,: society are obvious and important. The 
the laborer and the capitalist being uui- prospect of acquiring a home of his own 
ted in the stock holder. Following out! is an ever-present incentive to exertion 
the same idea it would seem practicable and frugality, and the payment of these 
for the farmers of a neighborhood to weekly dues to the Building Society di- 
start a co-operative ware-house with verts hundreds of thousands of dollars 
sufficient capital to make advances upon; from the corner dram shops. They are 
produce deposited in pledge, which in fact the best Temperance Societies, 
would give the farmer the benefit There is no reason why the advauta- 
of the rise in price when he should ges of such a system should be confined 
choose his own time to sell, and at the to the city or to the mechanics, and in- 
same time, place him in funds to bridge deed it has already begun to be introdu- 
over the anxious intervals. The inter- ced among the farmers in some parts of 
est upon those loans with storage and Maryland. Through such agencies, far- 
profit would pay all expenses if honestly mers of moderate means might be ena- 
and judiciously' administered, and yield bled to put up improvements on their 
a moderate dividend. A good Board of land of abetter class than they would 
Directors of the most substantial and otherwise attempt. Their application 
reliable farmers in the concern, a fre-to the condition and necessities of the 
quent inspection and audit of accounts rural districts would of course involve 
and frequent meetings of the stockhold-isome modification of details, which are 
ers would secure both an honest and ju-'arranged with special reference to the 
dicious administration of the funds, dwellers in towns, but the underlying 



11 



principles and results would be the same 
and the outlines of the system identical. 
[ have one more suggestion to make 
of a practical character before I con- 
clude. I take it for granted that in se- 
lecting for your orator on this occasion, 
a member ot the bar, you have not ex- 
pected to be enlightened much on the 
subject of farming. As every man in 
America is a natural born statesman, so 
every man thinks he is a born farmer, 
and no matter what his occupation ma} 7 
be, expects some day to retire from bu- 
siness and run a farm by way of recrea- 
tion. But I can assure you that so far 
as 1 am concerned, I have not come 
here with the slightest idea of instruct- 
ing you as to the proper rotation of crop 
or of teaching the ladies of Chester Co., 
how to put up butter. I have nothing 
to say about manures, soils, plows or 
reapers, I have no new fertilizer to ad-j 
vertise in this market, and am not the. 
agent for anybody's patent horse medi- 
cine. Nor do I appear here in any offi- 
cial capacity, nor as a public functiona-: 
ry, either actual or potential, either inj 
present or possible future tense. I am j 
here in response to your call in my exal-j 
ted capacity of a private citizen. As a! 
member of the legal fraternity I take; 
credit to myself for greet forbearance,; 
and some modesty in having refrained, 
on so eligible an opportunity, from en- 
larging upon the iudispensible impor- 
tance of the legal profession to agricul- 
ture. I think it could have been made 
clear that farmers, so far from being the| 
independent persons they are sometimes 
supposed to be, are in fact wholly de- 
pendent upon courts and lawyers, and; 
courts are only lawyers sitting down in- 
stead of standing up. The strength of a 



chain is only the strength ot the weakest 
link in it, and if only one link in his 
chain of title can have a flaw picked in 
it by a lawyer, the farmer will find a 
Bill in Chancery or an Ejectment suit 
going through his possessions not quite 
so quickly as a steam plow, but a good 
deal more effectually. 

Seriously, however, my friends, the. 
remark with which I conclude is the 
close and intimate communion with na- 
ture in all her aspects and phases and 
phenomena, by which the cultivators of 
the soil are favored beyond all other 
classes ot men, and which ought to in- 
spire and teach to look "through Nature 
up to Natures God.''' The man whatever 
his occupation may be, whose highest 
aim is to feed and fatten his mortality is 
not fit for an agriculturist, except in that 
sense in which swine are agriculturists. 
With him, as with them, it is simply 
root pig and die. The profession of the 
husbandman is a favored one, its tenden- 
cies are naturally, to him who remem- 
bers that he has an intellect and a soul, 
elevating and noble. From that profes- 
sion, more than all others combined, are 
drawn the rich imagery, the similes, the 
illustrations, the parables of Holy Writ. 
I feel that I cannot more profitably part 
from you than in the exact words of one 
of those impressive lessons in which the 
apostle Paul has swept into the track of 
his glowing and resistless logic the whole 
philosophy of agriculture ■ 

"Be not deceived ; God is not mock- 
ed ; for whatsoever a man soweth, that 
shall he also reap. 

For he that soweth to his flesh, shall 
of the flesh reap corruption : but he that 
soweth to the spirit, shall of the spirit 
reap life everlasting. Gal. VI — 7 — H. 



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